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Author Guidelines

M A N U S C R I P T S U B M I S S I O N O V E R V I E W

Submitted manuscripts should be full-length original research articles, excluding technical reports and all kinds of short publications, such as "Communications", "Comments", "Notes", etc.

The Archives of Biological Sciences is a multidisciplinary journal that covers original research in a wide range of subjects in life science, including biology, ecology, human biology and biomedical research.The Archives of Biological Sciences features articles in genetics, botany and zoology (including higher and lower terrestrial and aquatic plants and animals, prokaryote biology, algology, mycology, entomology, etc.); biological systematics; evolution; biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, including all aspects of normal cell functioning, from embryonic to differentiated tissues and in different pathological states; physiology, including chronobiology, thermal biology, cryobiology; radiobiology; neurobiology; immunology, including human immunology; human biology, including the biological basis of specific human pathologies and disease management.Submissions that are not considered:The scope of the journal is global, so short faunistic/floristic notes, checklists of limited geographical areas (e.g. a country) etc. are not considered. Single species descriptions can only be accepted if the relevance of the new taxon can be demonstrated (e.g. a description of single new species in a genus that already contains many will not be considered). Submission of articles describing new species on a single specimen is strongly discouraged. Manuscripts diverging from basic experimental research in biological sciences, such as research in agronomy (field experiments), agricultural and veterinary sciences, stomatology, descriptions of technological processes and solutions and instrumentation, technical reports, patient case studies, articles in in silico biology, and papers in pedagogy of biological science are not considered.

Scientific review articles will also be considered.A review article should provide a critical analysis of previously published literature in a specific field: it should organize, evaluate, identify patterns and trends and synthesize the literature, as well as identify research gaps and recommend new research areas.New data from the author’s experiments should not be presented.A review article will only be considered if it is written by a verified expert with extensive knowledge based on research in a particular subject area of study, which should be backed by no less than 5% self-citations. Before submission, potential authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief to ensure the proposed review article is within the current aims and scope of the journal. The corresponding author must provide: (i) the title of the review paper; (ii) a detailed reason why, in the light of the state of the art, the review is needed; (iii) a brief description of the contents of the paper including section titles and a list of references. (Note that inclusion of more than 60 references must be avoided). The Editor-in-Chief will evaluate the proposal and contact the authors with a decision on the matter.

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Submission of a manuscript to the editor implies that it has not been previously published, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that if accepted will not be published elsewhere in the same form without the written consent of the editor.

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Articles are subjected to a three-tier pass-process. Papers that pass the technical screening are subjected to plagiarism screening to identify misused text. Articles that pass these two steps are forwarded for unbiased peer review to independent referees.

The review is finalised when all comments by each reviewer have been addressed.

Authors may suggest the names of five referees with email addresses and affiliations, briefly explaining why they think the scientists would be good referees.

The Archives of Biological Sciences is published quarterly in open access electronic format.

The Archives of Biological Sciences usesan open-source software for the management of peer-reviewed academic journals, the Open Journal System, created by the Public Knowledge Project, released under the GNU General Public License. Instructions for the submission using OJS are available on the following links:

Manuscripts and accompanying material must be submitted through the online manuscript submission system - manuscripts sent by email are not considered.All subsequent versions of the manuscript must be uploaded using the same paper ID and defined password.

In all future correspondence please mention the manuscript ID.

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FAQs

- Is there an article processing charge?

The Archives of Biological Sciences does not charge authors an article processing charge.

- How many days does it take to review a submission?

The "days to review" can be calculated from the date of submission (or designation of Review Version) to the initial Editor Decision (for articles on the OnLine First page [http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/issue.aspx?issueid=3303), while the "days to publish" is measured for accepted submissions from its original uploading to its publication.

- Why is my paper archived?

The answer to this question contains IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR UNHINDERED COMMUNICATION WITH THE EDITORIAL OFFICE.

Upon submission of a manuscript authors should receive an automated Submission Acknowledgement. Authors are also informed if their submission does not adhere to the journal's Author Guidelines and has been rejected as an Unsuitable Submission (and is archived). However, sometimes certain e.mail clients do not recognize e.mail from abs.ibiss.bg.ac.rs. If you are missing e.mails from the Archives of Biological Sciences (ABS), please check your e.mail account's Spam or Junk folder to ensure the message was not filtered. If the message was filtered, you may find an option to 'Mark as good', 'Not Spam', 'Not Junk', or 'Add Sender to Safe Senders List.' This will aid in receiving future e.mails from ABS.

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A U T H O R G U I D E L I N E S

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WHEN PREPARING A MANUSCRIPT FOR SUBMISSION YOU MUST IMPLEMENT THE AUTHOR GUIDELINES.

Please take the time to read and apply these instructions to the presentation of your work. Pay attention to detail before submitting a paper. Ensure that your manuscript follows these guidelines before uploading your submission. Submissions are returned to authors if they do not adhere to these guidelines.As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the included items. The checklist appears in the Author Guidelines, under About the Journal. A paper that does not meet the journal's manuscript organization and bibliographic requirements, which is incomplete, which is written in substandard English and in which the presentation of tables and figures is substandard or in the wrong file format, is rejected immediately as an "Unsuitable Submission", of which the corresponding author is duly informed, and the paper is archived.

It is in your interest to present and submit your work as stated here in order to avoid resubmission and delayed acceptance for peer review. The more closely your manuscript, including tables and figures, adheres to these requirements at submission, the fewer times you will need to revise it to meet them.

BASIC REQUIREMENTS

SUBMISSION METADATA

A submission is not complete and will not be considered for peer review until all details (first, middle and last name, e.mail, ORCiD, academic/research rank, affiliation, country) for all authors have been entered in the Submission Metadata field on the submission web page in the online system.

COPYRIGHT TRANSFER AGREEMENT

Upon submission of a paper, the corresponding author must fill and each author must sign the Archives of Biological Sciences Copyright Transfer Agreement. The completed and signed agreement should be uploaded as one pdf file using the “ADD A SUPPLEMENTARY FILE” tab on the submission web page.

SUBMISSION SUMMARY

----------------------------THE SUBMISSION must be prepared and uploaded as ONE MS Word document with all figures embedded at the end of the manuscript.Submissions must not be uploaded as a compressed file-folder.

Supplementary files that are uploaded are:

(1) the figures, but ONLY WHEN THEY ARE IMAGES (tiff files; see the instructions below)

(2) the Copyright Transfer Agreement pdf file which has been signed by all authors

It is essential that a manuscript is prepared in accordance with the journal's author guidelines and is written in clear and grammatically correct English.Journal policy includes the requirement for proper English, as correct language ensures the reliability of the results and their comprehension by other scientists. Sentences should be clear and concise. Avoid wordiness, excessive use of jargon, a stilted, flowery, deliberately complicated writing which impairs the reader’s ability to grasp and appreciate the author’s message.Take note that no sentence must be alone, write in paragraphs. A paragraph is not just a sum of sentences; a paragraph is a story or a demonstration.Check the document by running Word's Spelling and Grammar feature.You can improve the quality of your manuscript by using a specialized editing service.

1 MANUSCRIPT FORMAT

Manuscripts must be Microsoft Word documents (DOC format).Manuscripts should be double-spaced in Unicode Times New Roman, normal font spacing; font size 12 pts; normal margin page layout with justified margins, US English spelling.Main section headings are bold all caps font (14 pts), subheadings are bold sentence case font (12 pts).The first lines of all paragraphs, except the first line of the first paragraph in a section, should be indented (left-indent, 1 cm). There should be no empty lines between paragraphs. Paragraph spacing Before, After: 0 pt.In the body of the text there are no bold fonts (except section headings), no numbered paragraphs/sections, no bullet points, no tables, no graphs, no figures, no footnotes, no headers.When submitting a manuscript, turn on the Line Numbers via the Page Layout option of word (apply continuous numbering). Line numbers and page numbers on each page are required to make it easier for reviewers to provide comments.

2 MANUSCRIPT ORGANIZATION

A manuscripts must be divided into the following ordered sections:

PAPER DESCRIPTION / HIGHLIGHTS

COVER PAGE

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS

Funding

Acknowledgements

Author contributions

Conflict of interest disclosure

REFERENCES

Tables

Figure Legends

Figures

Supporting information

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PAPER DESCRIPTION / HIGHLIGHTS

The first page of the manuscript is the 'paper description'.

Using not more than 100 words (do not use unexplained abbreviations and acronyms, do not cite references), provide a self-contained paper description, the paper highlights, which will be included on the published article-summary web page.This should be in the form of brief points / short answers to the questions below in a bulleted paragraph style, as follows:

Why did you start? What is already known about the topic of your submission? Avoid statements about how a process is not well understood. This refers to the rationale for the research, or the reason why the research was conducted.

What did you do? Provide an explanation of the design and methods, the experimental model employed in the research.

What did you find? Describe the results: what is new in your work, has not already been reported?

What does it mean? Provide an indication of the broader significance of the work: what does your work add to the existing body of knowledge?

COVER PAGE

The manuscript cover page does not have headings, It contains the

Title

Authors

Affiliations

The title must not exceed 200 characters with spaces. Abbreviations should be avoided in the title.

All authors’ names must be listed in the following order: first name, middle name initials (if applicable), family name(s).

Affiliations: Each author must list an associated department, university, organizational affiliation, address, city and country.One author, designated as the Corresponding author must provide an e.mail address and other contact information that will be published if the article is accepted.

ABSTRACT

The abstractis one paragraph, without headings, and must not exceed 200 words. It should present the hypothesis (avoid statements about how a process is not well understood), objectives of the study, experimental approach, major results and conclusion, with the last sentence of the abstract providing a strong summary statement of the study.Do not include references in the abstract.The abstract must not have unexplained abbreviations and acronyms.Do not use words that do not add meaning and are difficult to verify (novelty claims).

Five Keywords for indexing should be provided after the abstract. Keywords that are too general and multiple concepts should be avoided.

Abbreviations and acronyms: Do not use abbreviations or acronyms in the manuscript title. The full name must be given on first appearance and only once in full, with the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses. If there are many abbreviations, you can provide a list of them in one paragraph after the keywords; the full name must be followed by the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses. Keep abbreviations to a minimum.

Scientific names of plant and animal species: A species name is written in italics. It consists of two words: the first is the genus name, which is always capitalized, the second is the species epithet, which is never capitalized. Once a full scientific name has been used, the genus name may be abbreviated by its first letter. Names of families, orders, classes, phyla and kingdoms are capitalized but not italicized.Gene symbols should be italicized; protein products of the loci are not italicized.

INTRODUCTION

The introductionshould provide a clear and balanced (concise but sufficiently informative) overview of selected recent literature relevant to the topic of the manuscript, i.e. a description of the problem addressed in the manuscript and the aim of the work.This section must not contain subheadings; it must not refer to any supplied tables nor figures.

MATERIALS AND METHODSEthics StatementThe Ethics Statement must be declared in the manuscript under the first heading of the Materials and Methods section.Studies involving animals (live vertebrates) must be performed in strict accordance with internationally-accepted standards and regulations. Authors must obtain prior approval from their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee or equivalent Institutional Ethics Committee at submission as a separate supplementary file.For experiments (biochemical research) involving human subjects, authors must present an Institutional Review Board (IRB) statement. Authors must identify the committee approving the experiments and include with their submission a statement confirming that Informed Consent was obtained from all subjects. This must be declared in the manuscript under the first heading of the Materials and Methods section.The Materials and Methods section must be divided into appropriate subsections.The Materials and Methods should provide enough detail to allow full replication of experiments. While a detailed description of a novel protocol is encouraged, well-established methods can be cited as articles in which the protocols are described in detail.The International System of Units (SI) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) rules for naming organic and inorganic compounds should be adhered to.Apply SI Unit rules and style conventions.Units of measurement: The SI prescribes inserting a space between a number and a unit of measurement and between units in compound units, but never between a prefix and a base unit (5.0 cm not 5.0cm or 5.0 c m. However, temperatures should be written without a space, e.g. 20°C); an exception is the percent symbol % which is written without a space (10% not 10 %) as % is not an SI unit and the recommendation is often not followed. The liter (litre) should be written using an uppercase "L". Seconds are written as s not sec, hours are written as h not hrs, days are written as days not d. Centrifugation: express the acceleration applied to the sample in units of gravity, x g, not in rpm.Apply scientific rules for the use of space.The decimal mark is a dot (.), not a decimal comma. Numbers between −1 and +1 require a leading zero (0.01, not .01).Experimental groups should not be presented as a bulleted list but in one paragraph.Species names must be written in italics. Gene symbols should be italicized; protein products of the loci are not italicized.

Information related to the Materials and Methods section, such as maps, list of primers, methods, calculations, etc., must either be incorporated in the section, in the text and not as a table, or uploaded as online supplemental material (see below).

RESULTS

THE RESULTS MUST NOT BE COMBINED WITH THE DISCUSSION IN A "RESULTS AND DISCUSSION" SECTION.

The results should present clearly and concisely the obtained findings. Related findings must be presented as one figure comprised of several sub-figures, labeled “A”, “B”, “C”, etc. and described under one figure legend. (For detailed instructions regarding the presentation of results see below).This section should be divided with subheadings that convey information about the findings. Reuse the subheadings of the Results section in the Figure Legends to make the relationship clear.Essential background information related to the Results section, such as large data sets, maps, etc. should be uploaded as online supplemental material.There must be no mention of the placement of tables and figures in the body of the text. Tables and figures are presented at the end of the manuscript, after the references.

DISCUSSION

The discussionshould provide an interpretation of the results. It should not be redundant with the Results. Authors should avoid overloading this section with excessive citations and lengthy reinterpretations of related literature and must focus on their findings. Authors should avoid over interpretation of data and drawing conclusions for which they have not provided sufficient experimental proof.When writing the discussion, please take note that the past tense should indicate that a result is not established knowledge, while the present tense stresses the general validity of the result and illustrates what the author tried to achieve with the article.The discussion section should not include subheadings.Do not refer to specific (numbered) tables or figures mentioned in the results section; if a novel mechanism, model or hypothesis is presented in the last figure and is discussed, specific figure mention is allowed.

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions section is optional. Itshould provide a brief summary of the presented findings. This section must notmerely repeat parts of the abstract. It must not contain a bulleted list of conclusions nor any references.

Funding:All funding sources supporting the work must be fully acknowledged.

Acknowledgements:Persons who contributed to the work but do not fit authorship criteria should be mentioned.

Author contributions:This should include a statement of the different responsibilities that specify the contribution of every author.

Conflict of interest disclosure: If necessary, authors should describe any potential conflicts of interest.

REFERENCES

Inclusion of more than 60 references must be avoided. Authors should limit the number of cited references by referring to the most relevant papers regardless of whether a research or review article is submitted.

The ABS uses the Vancouver Citation Style as outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) sample references.References must be listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered in the order that they appear in the text.In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in square brackets [...].Note that the numbers corresponding to references listed in the REFERENCES section must not be in brackets.More than two references in numerical sequence should not be written one after another in sequence but as [1-3], etc.Avoid writing the name(s) of author(s) followed by the reference number, style the sentence so that only the reference number is stated.

Authors must not cite MSc theses, posters presented at scientific meetings, abstracts, unavailable and unpublished data, personal communications and manuscripts that have been submitted but have not yet been accepted. Therefore, avoid use of expressions such as "manuscript submitted", “unpublished work", as well as "data not shown".If an article is submitted to a journal and also publicly available as a pre-print, the pre-print may be cited. References for accepted articles may be included as “in press”, with the authors, title of the work, journal and DOI provided in the reference list.Journal name abbreviations should be those found in NCBI databases [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals].

The results, which are presented in tables, figures and figure legends, are the focal point of the submission and they play a critical role in defining its quality. A paper in which the presentation of tables and figures is substandard or in the wrong file format will be rejected immediately.

All results are inserted at the end of the manuscript, after the references. Each table / figure must be separated by page breaks so that one complete table / figure is presented on one page.

The article should contain not more than a combination of EIGHT tables and/or complete figures.Results must be presented concisely: Combine multiple graphs that share a common legend into one common figure. Sub-figures/-plates should be labeled “A”, “B”, “C”, etc. (bold capital lettering). Figures must not duplicate the same information found in tables and vice versa.

SUPPORTING INFORMATION / ONLINE-ONLY SUPPLEMENTTables and figures must only contain novel findings obtained in the study. Information contained in tables and/or figures which is auxiliary to the main content of the article must be uploaded in separate file(s) for publishing as an online-only supplement.Supplementary tables and supplementary figures must be referred to as such in the manuscript.Readers will access the files via hyperlinks in the Supporting Information section of the article.

> Tables

Authors must provide editable tables, written in word: use the Microsoft Word Table function to make tables. Format tables with Word's Table function; do not use tabs or spaces to create a table. Tables should be in black and white; rows and columns should not be shaded. Do not use line breaks or spaces to separate data within a cell.Tables must be incorporated in the manuscript and presented after the references.Each table must be separated by page breaks so that one complete table is presented on one page (unless the table is very long).Table fonts are in Unicode Times New Roman, font size 10 pts, single spaced.Tables should be labeled as Table 1, etc., numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred to in the text. Tables should not be abbreviated and referred to as "Tab."

Tables should have a clear, self-explanatory title anda short description that should make the table comprehensible without reference to the text. The table title and description must be above the table. Below the table is the table caption, which should provide explanations of the abbreviations (all abbreviations within a table must be defined), and information on the applied statistical procedures. Consistency between the text and details in tables (abbreviations, group names, treatment names, units of measurement, etc.) must be ensured. Abbreviations in tables must be explained at the end of the caption.Note that the decimal mark is a dot, not a decimal comma.

> Figure Legends

The list of Figure Legends comes after the last table as a separate section.Do not provide the figure legends with the actual figures (on the same page).A figure legend is one paragraph and should make the figure comprehensible without reference to the text. It must contain a short self-explanatory title clearly stating what the figure actually is (e.g. a micrograph, an electrophoretic profile, etc.), a brief description of the figure and the figure caption.Abbreviations in figures must be explained at the end of the caption. Ensure consistency between the text and details in the figures (abbreviations, group names, treatment names, units of measurement, etc.).In writing the figure title, we suggest re-use of the subheadings of the Results section to make the relationship clear.

> Figures

Before we can formally accept your submission, your figures must meet the requirements on this page.The more closely your figures adhere to these specifications at submission, the fewer times you will need to revise your manuscript to meet the requirements. Your figures will therefore be less likely to slow down publication of your accepted manuscript.

All figures must be embedded in the text after the list of figure legends.

ONE COMPLETE FIGURE (without the figure legend) must be presented on ONE PAGE (separated from the preceding and next page by page breaks).The number of the figure should be written in the word document (as Fig. 1, etc.), numbered consecutively in the order in which the figures are referred to in the results section).

Figures, when they are LINE DRAWINGS(diagrams, graphs and 'composite' figures containing insets of electrophoretic profiles and graphs)

These figures should not be supplied as tiff files. Authors are advised to provide editable graphs over which we can have full control and can correct the spelling of labels, font type, etc. Authors should bear in mind that graphs saved in tiff, jpg, bmp or png format are uneditable.

Data presented on graphs must include error bars on all graphs.

Note that the decimal mark is a dot, not a decimal comma.

Maintain a clean layout. In bar graphs avoid use of gray or color and instead use solid black, solid white and patterned, horizontally or diagonally striped bars.Ensure font consistency between the text in the figures: all label fonts in all graphs must be legible and uniformly presented in the same font type and size depending on their location in the graph. Ensure consistency between the text and details in the figures (abbreviations, group names, treatment names, units of measurement, etc.).

Image figures must be embedded in the manuscript at the appropriate place, ANDMUST ALSO BE UPLOADED as tiff files (figures must not be uploaded as compressed, PowerPoint or pdf files).

ONE COMPLETE FIGURE (image) must be uploaded as ONE tiff file: when a complex figure is comprised of different plates, labelled A, B, etc. (including a 'composite' figure comprised of micrographs and line drawings (graphs, etc.)), it must be uploaded as one figure file that contains the different plates.

Images must contain clear labels: size indicators, pointers to major structural compartments, Mw (kDa), bp, etc. The lettering in the illustrations should be of sufficient size to allow for reduction in size.Do not include figure number/title/caption within figure files.

Image resolution: It is important that the correct resolution is used when submitting digital artwork. The minimum requirements for resolution are: 1,200 dpi for line art (i.e. maps and plans in bitmap mode); 600 dpi for combination halftones (i.e. images containing drawings/photos with text labels in grayscale mode); 300 dpi for color photos; 300 dpi for halftones (i.e. black-and-white photos in grayscale mode).

> Supporting information / Online-only supplement

Table(s) / figure(s) cannot supplement the Introduction section.

Information related to the Materials and Methods section (e.g. maps, list of primers, methods, calculations, etc.) must either be incorporated in the Materials and Methods section (in the text and not as a table), or uploaded as online supplemental material.

Essential background information related to the Results section, such as large data sets, maps, etc. should be uploaded as online supplemental material.

A proposed novel mechanism, model or hypothesis described in the Discussion section can be presented in a figure accompanying the main body of the manuscript.

Supporting tables and supporting figures should adhere to the guidelines presented here.Aside from Word and tiff files, only supporting data can also be submitted as Excel or PowerPoint files.

The editor is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as long as it is possible. However, very occasionally, circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science and is not to punish the author(s).

Article Withdrawal: Only used for OnLine First articles, which are early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data.

Article Retraction: Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by the Archives of Biological Sciences: In the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by the Archives of Biological Sciences:

In the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

Self-archiving Policy

The Archives of Biological Sciences allows authors to deposit Author's Pre-print, Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as PubMed Central, Europe PMC or arXiv, or to publish it on author's personal website and departmental website, at any time after publication. Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged for deposit of Author's Post-print or Publisher's version/PDF, and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

Copyright

Articles published in the Archives of Biological Sciences will be Open-Access articles distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

This submission has not been previously published, nor has it been submitted for consideration in another journal.

The data presented in this submission have not been presented in part nor whole in any previously published article.

The article does not contain more than a combination of EIGHT tables and/or complete figures. The results are presented concisely and related findings (figures) are grouped as much as possible under a single figure(s) comprised of several sub-figures.

Tables are presented at the end of the text and are separated by a page break.

The FigureLegends are presented at the end of the manuscript, after the last table, separated by a page break. They provide descriptions of respective figures, making them comprehensible without reference to the text. Each figure legend has a title which is followed by the figure caption.

Figures are embedded in the text after the Figure Legends section, separated by page breaks. One complete figure is presented on one page.

Figures, when images, will be uploaded as supplementary files in tiffformat. A complete figure will be submitted (uploaded) as one file, not as several separate files.

Tables and figures that do not present novel results described in the paper will be uploaded as supplementary online files.

The manuscript has been prepared and will be uploaded as ONE MS.word.doc file. All figures are embedded at the end of the manuscript.

Figures, only when they are images (tiff files), will ALSO be uploaded.

Submissions must not be uploaded as a compressed file-folder.

Metadata for the submission: All data for all authors (first, middle and last name, e.mail, ORCiD, academic/research rank, affiliation, country) have been entered in the online system.

Copyright Notice

Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors shall transfer the copyright to the Publisher. If the submitted manuscript is not accepted for publication by the journal, all rights shall be retained by the author(s). When submitting the work, each author has to complete the Copyright Transfer Agreement.